Woodland's Dingle Elementary staff, parents talk about safety at school

Dingle Elementary School has experienced two lockdowns so far this year. Those incidents, coupled with Friday's shooting in Connecticut, have many Dingle parents thinking about school safety.

And now a group of them -- in concert with the Dingle Neighborhood Watch -- are doing something about it.

"We're trying to get more parents involved so that they know what's going on, they know how to respond" to emergencies, said Katrina Lane, a Neighborhood Watch member whose daughter is a kindergartner at Dingle.

To that end, parents and members of the Neighborhood Watch group gathered at the campus Monday evening to discuss school safety and hear a presentation by Principal Lonny Villalobos.

"Mr. V talked about preventing and responding to emergencies," Lane said, including "physical safety, student support programs and community outreach."

Reached by phone the next day, Villalobos said some of the proposed improvements to school safety should be fairly easy to implement. For example, a gate on the east side of campus is positioned such that "at certain times it needs to be unlocked for student movement."

Parents, he said, are suggesting: "Let's move the gate and then keep it permanently locked" -- a fix so easy to make the local PTA may pay for it.

Other fixes could be more involved. Lane said many are requesting that classroom doors be changed so teachers can barricade their rooms from the inside if necessary. Currently, doors at Dingle can only be locked from the outside.

Communication with parents in case of emergency was another concern, and Lane said the biggest issue was with new parents who hadn't yet learned the ropes.

Villalobos pointed to a mass communication method that has been very effective: The "all call system," as he calls it, can send a recorded message "to all parents within 10 or 15 minutes."

Both parent and educator agreed that the school's emergency response is effective. Parents were "impressed and proud" at the handling of the recent lockdowns, Lane said.

"The staff at Dingle are really well trained for emergencies," she said.

"I feel real confident with our response," Villalobos concurred. "We've done really well in both incidents. But just like life in general, when something comes up it makes you pause, and reflect."

"Schools should constantly be in reflection about this stuff, and so are we," he added.

The first lockdown came in September following a stabbing next to the campus. The second was just last week after a car thief was apprehended. In both of the recent lockdowns, police were active on Elm Street near Oak Avenue -- two streets bordering Dingle Elementary.

The first lockdown followed a gang-related attack on Elm Street on Wednesday, Sept. 5, when a man was stabbed in the neck by two other men. The assailants, identified as Rudy Gonzales and Javier Gortarez Jr., were arrested soon after on Pioneer Avenue across from Pioneer High School.

Then on Thursday, Dec. 13, a Woodland man was arrested in nearly the same spot after several police officers converged on him with guns drawn. The man, Eduardo Chavez, had allegedly stolen a car from a residence on Cottonwood Street.

In the second incident, "My daughter was actually with her teacher when they saw the cop cars," Lane said. The teacher ushered the girl into the classroom until the lockdown was lifted.

But probably nothing has affected Dingle parents more than the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in which 20 children were killed. The school is even organizing a vigil on behalf of those slain to take place at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in Heritage Plaza, located in front of the Opera House on Main Street.

"This is not a political gathering; our agenda is about safety for all who gather in public places, especially those that should be the safest: where children come to learn," wrote Victoria Lambert, art coordinator for Dingle Elementary.